


Vox Populi

by paperstorm



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers Tower, Canon Divergence - Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Domestic Avengers, Established Bucky Barnes/Steve Rogers, Fandom Trumps Hate, Fluff, M/M, POV Steve Rogers, Prompt Fill, Romance, grumpy bucky, halloween party
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-29
Updated: 2018-12-29
Packaged: 2019-09-30 04:08:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17216726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperstorm/pseuds/paperstorm
Summary: “You’ll come to the party, won’t you?” Wanda asks, looking at Bucky and Steve both, in turn. “It won’t be as much fun without you.”Steve looks to Bucky. Whatever he wants, that’s what Steve will do. Bucky hasn’t been here very long, if he isn’t ready to be subjected to one of Tony’s infamous house parties yet, Steve will watch a movie with him in their own living room instead.Bucky nods, and bumps Wanda’s shoulder. “Yeah, of course we will. Clearly it’s what the people want, who am I to disappoint."





	Vox Populi

**Author's Note:**

  * For [TrishArgh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrishArgh/gifts).



> The lovely Trish was kind enough to bid on me for this year's Marvel Trumps Hate auction, and requested a companion fic to her [ADORABLE Stucky Halloween art.](http://frau-argh.tumblr.com/post/179456649304/halloween) I am either 2 months late or 10 months early for Halloween fic, but! Merry Christmas, here's some spooky fluff! (Please go check out Trish's art and leave her some love, it's gorgeous!!)

“Of all the fucking holidays for the world to still be celebrating. Christmas, I get. But Halloween? Really?” Bucky stares at the message on Steve’s phone, the informal invitation. He has one of his own – standard Stark Industries issue, every new inhabitant of the tower gets one, because Tony is anal-retentive and needs to know where they all are at all times or he can’t sleep – but Bucky never uses his. It’s been sitting in a drawer in their room for three months, since the day he arrived. The battery is definitely dead at this point, even though Tony’s tech lasts a lot longer without a charge than an iPhone. Bucky is resistant to modern technology, other than practical things like electric heating and security systems and dishwashers. The others mock him for it, affectionately, but Steve understands his reasons.  
   
“Why not?”  
   
Bucky looks up at him and raises an eyebrow. “It celebrates Satan.”  
   
“It kind of doesn’t, anymore,” Steve tells him. “It’s been watered down to costumes and candy and horror movies. And like, Frankenstein and werewolves and stuff.”  
   
“Real monsters exist and people run around begging for candy dressed up as Frankenstein.”  
   
“In this century,” Steve moves in and hugs him from behind, resting his chin on Bucky’s shoulder, “regular people aren’t struggling to stay alive every second of their lives, so they have this new thing called  _fun_.”  
   
“We had fun,” Bucky counters, sounding resentful about it.  
   
“We did,” Steve agrees. In so many ways, he misses their old life in Brooklyn. Even when it was difficult, it was far simpler than his current existence.  However, “we also had Polio. And radiators that only worked when they felt like it. And some days, no food.”  
   
“What’s your point?”  
   
“We’re going to a Halloween party. You’re going to put on a costume, and be civil, and not pick a fight with Sam, and at least pretend to have a good time. If you really need to, you can come back here after and tell me all about how much you hated it.”  
   
“They don’t like me.”  
   
“Who?”  
   
“Any of them. Except maybe Wanda.”  
   
Steve kisses his cheek. “Wanda loves you. And the rest of them like you fine. You’re just paranoid.”  
   
“Wonder where I get that from.”  
   
Steve puts hands on Bucky’s hips and turns him, so they’re face to face and he can kiss him properly. He tucks Bucky’s long hair behind his ears. He’d been halfway expecting Bucky to cut it, once his memories were restored and his coding was erased and he felt more like his old self again; all traces of the Winter Soldier left only in nightmares. But Bucky hasn’t, and Steve isn’t necessarily complaining. He likes the look of it, and he likes the idea that Bucky can look at himself in the mirror and see himself as  _himself_ , even when he still looks like everything he’s trying to heal from. Some days are smoother than others, but he’s trying and he’s making progress and Steve is so proud of him.  
   
“The thing about having friends,” Steve says gently, into Bucky’s lips, “is that sometimes you have to do things with them, and be nice to them, if you want them to reciprocate.”  
   
“The guy who had one friend for 20 years is lecturing me on how to be nice,” Bucky grumbles, even as he kisses back and his arms go around Steve’s shoulders. The metal hand buries its fingers in Steve’s hair. At first, he’d resisted touching Steve with it unless absolutely unavoidable. He never said it out loud, but Steve understood anyway. Bucky hates his metal arm; hates what it’s done, hates where it came from, hates what it represents. Steve has been working, quietly and gently, to help Bucky accept it as part of himself, and of late, Bucky seems to hate it a little bit less. He touches with it, and uses it when necessary, and acts less like he wants to rip it off and smash it against a wall.  
   
“I don’t think you can ridicule me for only having one friend when my one friend was  _you_.” Steve smiles, and warms inside when Bucky smiles back. He’s always had such a beautiful smile, and it’s rare these days.  
   
“I never had good taste.”  
   
“Self burn.”  
   
“What the fuck does that mean?”  
   
“I don’t know, it’s something the kid always says. I probably didn’t use it right.”  
   
Bucky raises an eyebrow. “The kid also wears a spandex onesie by choice and shoots webs that look like come out of his hands. Maybe don’t take social cues from him.”  
   
“Comments like that are what merits me lecturing you on being nice,” Steve tells him, and Bucky rolls his eyes.  
   
“Fine. So what do I have to wear?”  
   
“Whatever you want. Pick a costume. Or a character. You always liked the Lone Ranger.”  
   
“Would you be Tonto?”  
   
“No. That’s culturally insensitive, now.”  
   
Bucky thinks about that for a moment, and then says, “okay, that’s understandable.”  
   
He moves in a little closer, and rests his forehead on Steve’s shoulder, so Steve tightens his arms around Bucky’s back; hugging him in closer. “Do you really not want to go? Because I wasn’t being serious, you don’t actually have to. Tony’s not going to kick you to the curb if you don’t come to a party.”  
   
“The only reason they put up with me is because of you,” Bucky says, his voice small and muffled against Steve’s shirt. “I don’t want to care. But sometimes I do.”  
   
Steve moves them to the bed; gets them both horizontal and then pulls Bucky back into his arms. He rubs his back, and likes when Bucky relaxes against him. So many decades and tragedies between them, but it still feels like home when they lie together like this. “I get why you think that. But it isn’t true. They understand, Buck. They know what you’ve been through, they know you’re healing.”  
   
“Healing,” Bucky repeats, derisively.   
   
“Am I wrong?” Steve cups his cheek, and makes Bucky look at him.  
   
Bucky’s eyes slip closed. “Guess not.”  
   
“You’re one of us, much as you try to fight it.”  
   
“I’m not  _trying_ to try to fight it.”  
   
“I know.” Steve smooths his hair back and kisses his forehead. “Be nice to yourself, too, okay? You’re getting there. Making progress.”  
   
“You don’t have to pretend to be so well adjusted.” Bucky’s fingers slip under Steve’s t-shirt, splaying over the small of his back. “I know you better than they do.”  
   
“Yes, you do,” Steve agrees. “And I’m trying, too. So we’re fucked up together, then.”  
   
“I guess I don’t hate that.”  
   
“Come to the party,” Steve urges. “Good music, nice people, all the chocolate you can stomach. Does that really sound so terrible?”  
   
“Can I go as a sexy nurse?”  
   
Steve laughs. “If you want. It might get you more attention than you’ll like.”  
   
“How about a sailor, then?” Bucky concedes. “With the little hat, and the striped collar, and a mermaid tattoo. The kind you definitely had a crush on before the war.”  
   
“I’m not gonna ask how you know that.”  
   
“I know everything about you, pal.” Bucky brings his flesh hand up to hold Steve’s jaw, and kisses his lips.  
   
“Unsettling. And also true. You don’t really want a tattoo, right?”  
   
“Not a real one. You could paint one on me.”  
   
“I like the sound of that.”  
   
Bucky’s mouth opens against his, soft lips parting to let Steve inside. Steve inhales as he deepens the kiss, moving in closer so he can drape a leg over Bucky’s hips. Properly against him, he can feel Bucky harden in his jeans, and pushes his thigh into it. The soft sound Bucky makes is beautiful, and Steve wants to roll over him and devour him, but he doesn’t. He keeps kissing instead, holding Bucky close to his chest.  
   
“D’you want …?” he asks, the words smeared into Bucky’s lips.  
   
“You don’t have to ask me every time,” Bucky answers. “If I’m kissing you and my dick is hard against your leg, you can assume I want to.”  
   
Steve shakes his head, and ends their kiss so he can press his lips to Bucky’s forehead instead. He knows what Hydra did to him; the things he’ll talk about, and the things he won’t. It’s so vitally important to Steve that Bucky be allowed to make decisions, to know he can want things and ask for them and to know he can say ‘no’ and it will be listened to. “I’m gonna ask every time.”  
   
It’s new, this thing between them. It’s also old – decades ago they knew each other like this, but then the world stepped in the way and forced them apart; forced Steve to live years with the knowledge that he’d never see Bucky again; forced Bucky to endure far, far worse. It took a long time, once he had Bucky back, to find their way back to this. Even platonic touches set him off at first, had him panicking and jerking away and one time throwing a water glass at Steve on instinct, that Steve ducked out of the way of just before it hit the wall and shattered. At first, Steve wasn’t sure Bucky even remembered what they’d been to each other. His memories are still spotty, full of holes and patches where he remembers things with pieces missing, or vividly remembers things that probably never happened at all. Steve hadn’t wanted to tell him about it, out of fear it would seem like pushing Bucky back into something he might not want anymore. It took over a month for that particular memory to resurface in Bucky’s fractured mind, and then a few more weeks before he rolled over in the bed they’d been sharing and reached for Steve.   
   
Bucky swallows. “You don’t have to, though. I know you’d stop if I said to.”  
   
“Maybe it’s for me, as much as it’s for you.” Steve brushes his hair back, and moves his head backwards just an inch on the pillow so he can see Bucky’s face, but keeps his knee on Bucky’s hip so he stays close. “Maybe I like getting confirmation that you really want this, and you’re not just doing it because you think I want it.”  
   
Bucky’s turn to shake his head, and tilt his chin back up for another kiss. Stubble on his cheeks, that was never there before the war when facial hair wasn’t in style, scratches lightly against Steve’s face. He likes it. Makes it easier to separate what they have now from his memories of before. He hasn’t wanted to revert right back to the way things were. He’s wanted to build something new.  
   
“I love you,” Bucky tells him softly. “I trust you. I want you to touch me.”  
   
Steve nods, and cups the back of Bucky’s head as he kisses him, before sliding his hand down over Bucky’s arm, and then around to his front to undo his jeans and push his hand inside. “I love you so much. Can’t even tell you, there aren’t enough words.”  
   
“I know a few more than you. Te iubesc.” Bucky’s exhale is warm on Steve’s cheek, sighing as Steve strokes him and then repeating the sentiment in German, and then Spanish. He reaches down, tugging at Steve’s sweats to get them out of the way.  
   
“Use the other one,” Steve requests, looking down pointedly at Bucky’s metal arm.  
   
Bucky’s eyes find his, worried and hesitant.  
   
“If you want,” Steve amends. “Only if you want. But … you wouldn’t hurt me. I trust you, too.”  
   
Bucky shifts a little and reaches for him, taking Steve into the cool, metal fingers, and watching as they move over heated flesh. Steve moans softly, at the way the smooth metal feels against his skin, and the way it looks, being manipulated by something that isn’t human but is still a part of Bucky.  
   
“You like this?” Bucky whispers.  
   
“Yeah. But not if you’re hating it. Tell me the truth, okay?”  
   
Bucky licks his lips and watches the fingers wrapped around Steve. There’s something deeply personal but gentle, about they way they’re lying together, still almost fully clothed, sharing a pillow and stuttered breaths and touching each other in between, bodies like parenthesis, wrapping up their intimate caresses. Bucky swipes the metal thumb over where Steve’s leaking, and Steve moans again. The metal is warmed from his skin, but still smooth, with ridges in the knuckles that rub nicely against him.  
   
Darkened blue eyes flick up to his. Bucky’s eyes are shiny, like he’s overwhelmed, but his cheeks are pink and his expression depicts the way Steve’s hand feels on him. “Would you … want other things? With the hand?” he asks.  
   
“Like what?” Steve asks, breathless at the idea of what he thinks Bucky might be suggesting.  
   
“I could … not tonight. But we could work up to it, I could try to be okay with it. If … you wanted that.”  
   
“The only things I want are the things you want,” Steve says, and presses a kiss to Bucky’s lips to emphasize the point. “But, it’s a part of you, so of course you can put those fingers in me, if you want to.”  
   
Bucky nods, and doesn’t look entirely averse to the idea. “Not tonight,” he repeats.  
   
“What do you want tonight?”  
   
Stopping the movement of his fist over Steve, Bucky pushes at his sweats again, enough to ruck them down a few inches, doing the same to his own pants with his other hand. “Roll on top of me,” he requests, pulling at Steve’s waistband. “Wanna be under you.”  
   
Steve gives it to him, always gives him everything without questioning. He blankets Bucky’s slightly smaller body, propping himself up on his elbows so they can kiss. Bucky’s hands on his back feel suddenly edging on frantic, but maybe not the good kind, so Steve murmurs, “shh” into his lips. “It’s okay. Everything’s okay, I’m right here.”  
   
“I know,” Bucky breathes. His hand on Steve’s ass pushes down, encourages him to rock his hips into Bucky’s body, so they rub together between their stomachs as Bucky sucks on Steve’s lower lip.  
   
*           *           *  
   
Steve isn’t looking where he’s going, as he walks down the hallway toward the communal kitchen the next morning; he’s scrolling through a news feed on his tablet instead, and he trips over something hard and round. He manages not to fall right on his face, or drop the tablet, but he must look crazy as he flails and tries to steady himself against the wall.  
   
“Graceful,” Natasha’s voice says to him from across the room.  
   
He looks up at her, and there is an enormous, bright orange pumpkin in her arms. It’s nearly twice as wide as her; she’s probably struggling to lift it, even with her impressive strength, but true to form has arranged her facial features into a nonchalant expression, pretending it’s effortless. Steve looks down at the ground, and sees a smaller pumpkin rolling away down the hall, fleeing the scene where it had just been assaulted by his foot.  
   
“Ow,” he comments, belatedly realizing his big toe hurts from crashing into the pumpkin, and his shoulder hurts from crashing into the wall. Glancing around the room, he realizes there is orange everywhere. “What’s, uh, going on in here?”  
   
“We’re gonna carve them later, apparently,” Natasha tells him, with an eye-roll.  
   
“Nobody’s asking you to stick around, Anastasia,” Tony says. He heaves a pumpkin up onto the kitchen island, where it joins at least six others. There are dozens more on the floor.  
   
“Did you rob a farmer at gunpoint?” Steve asks. He moves further into the open kitchen area, setting the tablet down on the counter and bending over to pick up two smaller pumpkins. “Where did you get so many?  _Why_ did you get so many?”  
   
Tony gestures at Steve, and throws an exasperated look Natasha’s way. “Strongest guy here, and he picks up the smallest ones. Throw your weight around a little, Cap, there’s one over by the door that neither of us could lift.”  
   
Steve puts the two in his hands down on the island, and jogs over to where Tony’s pointing. The gourd is the size of a coffee table, and even for Steve weighs a ton when he gets his arms under it and lifts. “How did you get this up here, if you can’t lift it?”  
   
Before Tony can respond, Bucky wanders into the room, shirtless in a pair of Steve’s sweatpants, rubbing his hand through his sleep-mussed hair. He looks soft and grumpy and utterly adorable, and the look on his face as he takes in the scene before him makes Steve smile to himself. “What the fuck are you people doing?”  
   
“Normally I’d tell him to be nice, but that is an excellent question.” Steve heaves the enormous pumpkin up onto the counter next to the microwave. He looks back at Tony and adds, “and you haven’t answered any of mine.”  
   
“Morning, Robocop,” Tony says to Bucky, still ignoring Steve. “This is called Halloween.”  
   
“I know what Halloween is.” Bucky, unlike Steve, makes no move to assist with the transportation of the orange vegetables, and instead goes for the coffee maker. He’s always been prickly in the mornings until he gets coffee into him. It’s something they always sprung for even when they were dirt poor, because Bucky was intolerable without it. “In Brooklyn in the 30s, people usually had one pumpkin. Maybe two. Not fifty.”  
   
“Well the Depression was tough on everyone.” Putting another one up on the island, Tony asks, “Are you gonna help?”  
   
Bucky raises an eyebrow, and sips from his mug. “No.”  
   
Tony looks over at Steve, dropping an arm down to his side exasperatedly and raising his own eyebrows as if to appeal to Steve’s ability to coax Bucky into being more friendly than he’s prone to. It’s not that Bucky  _isn’t_ friendly, it’s just early in the morning still and the caffeine hasn’t kicked in – and, he’s still not entirely sure about Tony. But Steve knows Tony still isn’t entirely sure about Bucky, so they’re evenly matched. “I let him into my tower, I put food in his mouth.”  
   
“You really want to charge me rent in the form of manual pumpkin labor?” Bucky asks, rolling his eyes, and earning a snicker from Natasha as she moves past him with another pumpkin. She likes him a lot, Steve can tell, which is miraculous considering she has a scar on her hip from a bullet that came out of a gun he fired. She knows about being trained, and brainwashed, and made to do bad things, and she doesn’t hold it against him. Steve loves her for it.  
   
“Is there a reason the Iron Legion can’t be doing this instead of us?” Steve asks.  
   
Natasha looks up, eyes widening like she hadn’t considered that, and promptly drops the pumpkin she’d been carrying. It doesn’t smash, but rolls away to bump into the fridge. Bucky smirks into his coffee.  
   
“Why are you people allergic to fun?”  
   
“What park of lugging vegetables across a room is fun?” Natasha demands.  
   
The elevator dings as its doors open, and Wanda and Bruce walk out, having come up from their own floors. Everyone has a kitchen, but they usually have breakfast together, on days they aren’t running off into battle. It’s become a routine, one that Steve finds comforting. Makes them feel more like a family.  
   
“What’s … this?” Bruce asks, in that calculated, measured way of his. He’s far less reactive than the rest of them, at least in his human form.  
   
Wanda takes in the scene and grins, choosing instead of voicing her own confusion to head over into the open kitchen and stand next to Bucky. He smiles at her, the irritation melting out of his expression. She reaches up to tuck his hair behind his ear, and speaks to him; soft words that Steve can’t hear from across the room. Bucky leans into her as he answers. He wasn’t wrong, the night before; Wanda does love him. She can relate to what he’s been through more than any of the rest of them, and she’s been in need of someone to talk to and bond with and take care of since they lost her brother in Sokovia. They were so close, spending most of their lives with only each other as company, while Hydra used their abilities to hurt people, and she’s been a little lost since she arrived at the tower. Bucky came to them in much the same position. Steve knows they tell each other things they won’t say to anyone else, dark, painful secrets from their pasts that they’re both still trying to heal from. As it usually does, his heart fills with gratefulness for her, as he watches them whisper, with her fingers still in his hair. It doesn’t bother him in the slightest, that there are some things Bucky can’t share even in the comfort and safety of the bed they share. As long as he’s saying those things to someone, Steve’s okay that it isn’t him.  
   
Steve makes eye contact with Bucky when he looks up. In the background, Natasha and Tony are still arguing about whether Tony’s army of robots could be helping them, and Bruce is theorizing about designing a computer program that could carve all the pumpkins according to a selection of Jack-o-lantern stencils, and Tony is bemoaning that carving the pumpkins themselves is half the fun of Halloween. Steve flicks his eyes toward the elevator, indicating to Bucky that maybe they should have breakfast alone today. In response, Bucky looks down towards Wanda, and Steve nods. Of course she’s welcome to join them.  
   
Bucky dips his head and speaks into Wanda’s ear, and she looks up at Steve and smiles.  
   
“I’ve never carved a pumpkin,” she says conversationally, once they’re back on Steve’s floor, in his kitchen, and Steve is attempting to scramble eggs for the three of them. He’s never been a very good cook, although he always tried, back in Brooklyn.  
   
“We used to,” Bucky says, still drinking from the mug he’d stolen from the communal kitchen. “We had to steal them, though, remember, Steve? Our folks usually couldn’t afford to throw money at things like that, especially since they’d just be thrown out on November 1st. We’d hitch-hike out of town and nick them from a farmer’s field. Lie about it later, say they were giving extras away at the corner store.”  
   
“I’m pretty sure our folks knew we were lying.” Steve drags a spatula through the eggs, watching them begin to solidify. “But we always got one for Becca, so they let us get away with it.”  
   
“You stole?” Wanda asks, pretending to be scandalized. “What would people think, if they knew that about Captain America?”  
   
“Most people don’t know shit about Captain America,” Steve answers. He keeps the resentment out of his voice because it’s a casual conversation, but he isn’t wrong. There are few people in this world who have ever bothered to get to know Steve Rogers, rather than the character he’s been made to play; the empty, shallow symbol of patriotism and exceptionalism and following the rules, that is so far removed from who he actually is or anything he really stands for. Sometimes it feels like the world is intentionally misunderstanding him, because they know the real him would be a disappointment.  
   
“A lot of little old ladies would be clutching their pearls if they knew some of the things I know about Captain America,” Bucky says, with a smirk that reminds Steve of another lifetime.  
   
He points the spatula across the kitchen island. “Watch it, pal, I’ve got dirt on you, too.”  
   
“I didn’t mean dirty stuff. I was  _referring_  to the laws you’ve broken, for very upstanding, righteous reasons, of course. Like felony identity fraud, when you were trying to lie your way into the army.” Bucky’s eyes twinkle. It’s rare, but becoming slowly more common, for him to look as happy as he looks right now. “I wasn’t even going to tell her about the time we almost got caught down by the docks with your dick in my mouth.”  
   
Steve chokes on his own saliva, and Wanda collapses into giggles. She hugs her arms around Bucky sideways. “Oh, please never leave us.”  
   
“I’ll stay as long as Stark lets me,” Bucky says, with a shrug. “Sooner or later he’ll probably get sick of me.”  
   
Steve scrapes eggs evenly onto three plates, and distributes them onto the island. As he walks past Bucky toward an empty chair, he holds the side of Bucky’s head and kisses his hair. Steve has generally steered clear of public displays of affection, around the others, out of personal and professional courtesy. Around the person Bucky’s found to confide in, he doesn’t mind. “You can stay as long as I’m here.”  
   
“You’ll come to the party, won’t you?” Wanda asks, looking at Bucky and Steve both, in turn. “It won’t be as much fun without you.”  
   
Steve looks to Bucky. Whatever he wants, that’s what Steve will do. Bucky hasn’t been here very long, if he isn’t ready to be subjected to one of Tony’s infamous house parties yet, Steve will watch a movie with him in their own living room instead.  
   
Bucky nods, and bumps Wanda’s shoulder. “Yeah, of course we will. Clearly it’s what the people want, who am I to disappoint. Will everyone be in a costume?”  
   
“Definitely.” Steve takes a bite. “Also, you should know, it won’t just be us. Tony invites all kinds of people, I usually don’t know who most of them are, but. There will be a crowd.”  
   
“Sounds fun,” Bucky says, with another shrug.  
   
Later, once Wanda has left them alone, Steve pulls Bucky into his arms one of the couches in his living room; the one that faces the wall of windows and looks out over the sea of buildings. “You sure?” he asks, as he tucks Bucky under his chin, and hugs him tight.  
   
Bucky snorts, but he snuggles in and kisses Steve’s neck. “You don’t gotta treat me like I’m about to shatter at any minute. It’s a party, not a torture chamber.”  
   
Steve doesn’t mention that Bucky’s spent a lot of time in an actual torture chamber over the decades he was in Hydra’s captivity. They both know the reality of what he went through; there’s no need to constantly bring it up when Bucky’s trying to move on from it.  
   
“If we get there and I hate it, I’ll come back here,” Bucky continues.  
   
“I’ll come with you.”  
   
“You don’t have to do that.”   
   
Steve threads his fingers together and locks them, keeping Bucky against his chest. “Maybe I want to.”  
   
“I’m not a little kid, Steve. I don’t need you to hold my hand while I cross the street, just ‘cause Hydra scrambled my brain.”  
   
Steve hooks his crooked finger under Bucky’s chin and tilts his face up, so he can press a kiss to soft lips. “I wanna be with you. Don’t care where that is. And if I’m holding your hand, it’s not ‘cause I feel sorry for you. It’s ‘cause I wanna hold your hand.”  
   
“You were always a sap.”  
   
“I know.”  
   
“Love you, though,” Bucky concedes.  
   
“I know that, too.”  
   
*           *           *  
   
Bucky spends the morning with Steve on the couch, scrolling through party store websites on Steve’s phone, looking for costumes. He’s still struggling to wrap his mind around the fact that he can just click on an item for sale on the magic box in his hand and it will be delivered to their door within 24 hours. Steve is too, really; the world had changed such a terrifying amount in the 65 years he’d been in the ice, and he’s had time to cope with it since then but certain things still boggle the mind. Bucky, on the other side of that coin, was conscious to watch things change at their natural pace, but only for short amounts of time, and his life was entirely under Hydra’s control. Steve doubts they ever let him have a cell phone – he doubts the Asset even knew what a cell phone was. He did was he was programmed to do, and if Bucky’s patchy memories are anything to go by, he didn’t have an independent thought until the day he saw Steve on the bridge in D.C.  
   
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, I think I’d look good in this,” Bucky says, from below Steve where his head is resting in Steve’s lap. He’s stretched out on the couch with his ankles propped up on the arm, and his long hair spread messily over Steve’s thighs. He holds out the phone and shows Steve a typical sexy nurse costume, like the one he’d joked about the night before, complete with a lacy garter and thigh-high stockings and ample cleavage on the blond model.  
   
Steve chuckles. “Yeah, you would. Hey, I’m not saying you shouldn’t. Just that if you’re looking to blend into the crowd and not have 50 pairs of eyes following you all night, cross-dressing probably isn’t your best option.”  
   
“Even on Halloween? People used to do that all the time.”  
   
“People used to put on their grandmother’s dresses for a joke, not walk down 12th Avenue dressed like a stripper.” Steve hands the phone back. “But, again. Do what you want. I have no objections.”  
   
Bucky was never being serious anyway, but he makes a show out of rethinking the idea. “I guess you’re right.”  
   
Steve drags fingers through Bucky’s hair, and likes the way his stormy blue eyes flutter closed for just a moment. Bucky didn’t know a gentle touch for decades. Other people’s hands brought him nothing but pain, for such a long time. Now that he’s unafraid of it, he reacts to it so beautifully, leaning into Steve’s fingers, silently asking for more.  
   
“Did you find any sailors?” Steve asks.  
   
Bucky nods, and flips to that search result. He zooms in on one and hands the device back to Steve. It’s more or less what Steve had been picturing. It’s what men in the Navy wore during the war; dark blue, with red piping, a neckerchief, and cap. It has stitched anchors and ship helms on it as extra decoration, because it’s a Halloween costume and not a real service uniform.  
   
“I’ll cut the sleeves off, so you can still paint tattoos on me.”  
   
It’s on the tip of Steve’s tongue to say that’s unnecessary, but he reconsiders. If Bucky wants to walk around with his metal arm on display to a bunch of strangers, that’s incredible progress from when he first arrived here and would only take off his long sleeves and gloves when he was alone with Steve.  
   
“Perfect.” Steve smiles at him. “I’ll paint you the prettiest mermaid. Maybe a nice heart on the other arm that says  _Mom_ underneath.”  
   
“How about  _Steve_ , instead?” Bucky suggests. His smile is shy, but then he looks away as his cheeks go pink. “Never mind, that’s stupid. Most people outside of your Avengers don’t know about us, do they.”  
   
Steve’s stomach flips, and he hunches over so he can kiss Bucky sideways. He murmurs into his lips, “no, they don’t. But they can. I don’t care if you don’t.”  
   
“We can’t do it this way.”  
   
“Why not?”  
   
“Because, won’t it be a whole … thing?” Bucky gestures aimlessly with his real hand. “If Captain America comes out of the closet, or whatever that expression is? Won’t it be on the news, and everything?”  
   
Steve considers it, and unfortunately, he isn’t wrong. “Yeah. Probably.”  
   
“Will people be mad at you?”  
   
“Some people.” Steve pets Bucky’s hair again. “I don’t know if I care about those people.”  
   
“What about that you’re with … me. That will be a thing too.”  
   
“You were granted amnesty,” Steve reminds him, gently. “Not responsible for the things Hydra made you do.”  
   
“The U.S. government forgives me. Doesn’t mean the families of my victims do, or the general public.” Bucky stares down at his hands, real and metal, as he says it, and again, he isn’t wrong. Steve hates it, but he isn’t wrong. It’s why Bucky has to stay in the tower, at least for now. He’d been released into the custody of Tony and Pepper, because the United Nations Security Council didn’t trust Steve to be Bucky’s guardian, and is for all intents and purposes on unofficial house arrest – as much for his own safety, as for anyone else’s.  
   
“So, we won’t paint my name on your arm in a heart, and let some party guest sell a picture of it to TMZ,” Steve says, agreeing with Bucky’s initial worry that it wasn’t the best way to tackle this particular issue. “Having it trickle out in rumors isn’t the way to do it. We’ll do it right, with a prepared statement, or a press conference, or, I don’t know, Tony’s better at this kind of thing. He’ll know what to do.”  
   
Bucky blinks up at him. “You really want people to know? Especially about me?”  
   
Steve kisses him again, awkward as it is to bend himself in half to do so. “People don’t know you. And they don’t know me, either. They’re going to think what they want, anyway, no matter what we do. Doesn’t mean we have to hide to please a bunch of faceless strangers.”  
   
Bucky still looks unsure.  
   
“Not something we have to decide right now.” Steve points toward the phone lying forgotten on Bucky’s chest. “Order that one, I like it.”  
   
“What about you?” Bucky asks, as he clicks ahead to the order form.  
   
Steve looks at the tablet in his hand, where he’d been scrolling through the same website but with different search parameters. “I thought, since you’re going as something I had a crush on in the 30s, I could go as something you had a crush on in the 30s.”  
   
“Showgirls?” Bucky waggles his eyebrows, and Steve laughs.  
   
“Firefighters.” He shows Bucky the one he’d landed on; boots and wide pants with suspenders and a helmet and a tight, beige shirt with F.D.N.Y. in red lettering across the chest.  
   
“Oh.” Bucky looks at it, and briefly draws his lower lip between his teeth. “Yeah. Okay. You’ll look good in this.”  
   
Steve laughs again, lower this time. “You think so?”  
   
“Always looking for an excuse to show off those biceps, huh?” Bucky jokes, recovering from his brief moment of distraction and circling right back around to teasing. It feels easy, and natural. They’ve been teasing each other since primary school.  
   
“You complaining?”  
   
“Didn’t say that.”  
   
Steve smiles at him, and Bucky rolls onto his side toward Steve, so his face is pushed into Steve’s stomach. He pushes up Steve’s t-shirt and kisses his skin. Steve orders the costume, and makes sure Bucky has done the same before he gets up off the couch, leaving Bucky disgruntled for just a moment before climbing back on top of him, draping himself over Bucky’s body and kissing him breathless. He does remember that time by the docks that Bucky mentioned earlier. They’d had to sneak around so much, back then. Steve still gets sick to his stomach when he thinks about all the unimaginable things Bucky has been through, and it breaks his heart to watch Bucky struggle with it all on a daily basis. But he can’t regret where they’ve ended up. Bucky is here, he’s safe, he still loves Steve as much as he ever did, and Steve gets to fall asleep with him every night and wake up with him every morning, and if there are nightmares in between, Steve can handle it as long as he gets to keep Bucky in his arms.  
   
*           *           *  
   
They receive another summon from Tony via group text message, much later, after the sun has gone down.  
   
“Pumpkin carving in the main kitchen, kids,” Steve reads it out loud, to Bucky. “Come up if you want, leave the attitudes.”  
   
“He’s not really expecting us to carve them all, is he? There were dozens.”  
   
Steve shrugs. “Let’s go find out, I guess.”  
   
He takes in the chaos in the common area on the top floor of the tower as the elevator door opens. Tony had taken Steve’s suggestion from this morning, to enlist the Iron Legion. Half a dozen of them are flying around, hanging up orange and black decorations, draping fake cobwebs from the lamps, and crashing into each other. Pumpkins are lined up in the middle of the room, on large black tarps, with various knives and scoops and other carving tools scattered around among them. Thor and Clint are standing near them, Clint attempting to explain the tradition and Thor laughing loudly about the silly things humans get up to. The furniture’s been pushed against the walls. Natasha and Pepper are sitting on the ground, examining the rows of pumpkins; Pepper with a bright smile on her pretty face, and Natasha looking like she’s fighting back the urge to roll her eyes, like she usually is. She loves them all, she just would be the last to admit it.   
   
Wanda has a large, black, gothic chandelier suspending in the air above her head, red energy pulsing around it, while one of Tony’s robot soldiers attempts to unscrew the existing light fixture and rains sparks down onto Wanda and the pumpkins. Pepper and Natasha scramble out of the way.  
   
“Can someone else do this?” Wanda calls over her shoulder. “Preferably someone who actually knows about electrical wiring? This thing is going to light the place on fire.”  
   
“For fuck’s sake,” Sam mutters, as he darts past them. He asks Vision for a boost, and Vision carries him up toward the ceiling, where Sam bats the robot away and starts in on the light fixture himself, grumbling about it as he does.  
   
“Jesus Christ,” Bucky swears beside him, surveying the pandemonium, and Steve grins and throws an arm around him, tugging Bucky in to kiss his cheek.  
   
“Welcome to your home for the foreseeable future.”  
   
“Lucky me.”  
   
A metal crash in mid-air turns everyone’s attention, and Pepper yells, “Tony!”  
   
He emerges from the kitchen, skidding in his socks on the floor.  
   
“Your bots are going to get us all killed,” Pepper tells him; unnecessarily. Tony is already barking commands at them, as the two in the air attempt to untangle themselves from each other.  
   
“Near-death experiences are what Halloween is all about,” he says, turning and grinning at her.  
   
“Clint said it was about candy,” Thor argues. “And pumpkins. And sexy dress up games.”  
   
“I’m pretty sure that’s not what I said.” Clint sits on the ground next to Natasha, as Vision and Sam come back down from the ceiling, the seasonally appropriate chandelier fixed in place.  
   
“Really?” Sam asks Tony, with a raised eyebrow and an annoyed gesture above his head. “You’re changing the hardware, for a party?”  
   
“I literally don’t know why I bother with any of you,” Tony pronounces dramatically. “Not an once of festive sprit in the whole group. The Christmas party is cancelled.”  
   
Noticing Bucky and Steve across the room, Wanda holds out her hand, asking them to join. Bucky goes over and sits next to her, pulling a pumpkin into his lap and grabbing a carving knife. Steve watches, as he shows her how to cut a circle around the stem to create a lid. He goes to the kitchen for a drink, while the others settle onto the floor. Bruce is leaning on the counter, waiting for the coffee maker to finish percolating, and smiles when Steve walks in.  
   
“Avoiding the anarchy in the living room?” Steve asks.  
   
“Loud noises, you know.” Bruce shrugs a little, and his smile is stilted.  
   
Steve nods. “I know. I think it’s calmed down, now.”  
   
“Your robot boyfriend seems to be settling in,” Tony’s voice says, entering the room behind them with an armful of packaging from decorations. He shoves the plastic and cardboard into the trash can next to the refrigerator.  
   
Steve looks at him. “To pumpkin carving, or just in general?”  
   
“Both. Which is good news, since the alternative to the later was him short-circuiting again and killing us all in our sleep.” Tony shrugs, but underneath the bravado, he looks pleased about the progress that’s been made. His kinder side emerges when he isn’t putting on show for everyone. He didn’t have to let Bucky come here. After his parents, Steve would have understood if Tony never wanted to see either of them again. Steve will never be able to make it all up to him. He raises an eyebrow, and gives Steve a typical Tony Stark smirk. “I know that face, Rogers. I keep telling you, I’m not accepting thanks in the form of blow-jobs. Not sober, anyway.”  
   
“Yeah.” Steve laughs a little. “Okay, I’ll do my best to resist.”  
   
“I’m gonna tell your husband on you, if you keep flirting with me,” Tony adds, over his shoulder as he walks back out towards the common area.  
   
Bruce looks highly embarrassed by the entire exchange, so Steve leaves him alone in the kitchen and heads to the pumpkin carving station as well. He sits on Bucky’s other side, and smiles as he notices Bucky carving a star into his pumpkin that looks suspiciously like the one on his shield.  
   
*           *           *  
   
Bucky spends a long time in the bathroom, the next evening. Steve puts his costume on in the bedroom, hooking the suspenders over his shoulders and wincing at how tight the shirt actually is. It might be cutting off the circulation in his arms, and he briefly considers going shirtless, but then remembers there will be guests in attendance who he doesn’t know, and decides he doesn’t want the night to end with pictures of his chest all over the internet. When Bucky finally emerges, he has a nervous smile on his face, like he isn’t sure what Steve is going to think. Steve takes him in; the blue fabric against his skin, his metal arm on display, his hair pulled back into a low knot at the back of his head, the hat tilted just slightly to one side.  
   
“Looks good, Sergeant,” Steve tells him, with a grin, to hide the way his heart flutters in his chest.  
   
“Not too bad yourself, Cap.” Bucky’s eyes travel the length of his body, and he jokes, “did you paint that shirt on?”  
   
“More or less. Maybe you can help me out of it, later.”  
   
Bucky’s eyes flash, and he walks over and takes Steve’s hips in his hands, tilting forward to kiss the corner of Steve’s mouth.  
   
“I know that sounded like a pick-up line, but I might actually need your help getting out of it.”  
   
A soft laugh, and a softer kiss, and Bucky nuzzles into him.  
   
“Speaking of paint.” Steve turns Bucky toward the dresser, where he left the face-painting kit he’d ordered along with his costume, two brushes, and a glass of water. “What do you want?”  
   
“I remember being promised the world’s prettiest mermaid.”  
   
“I can do that.” Steve wraps his arms around Bucky from behind, hugging him just for a moment before he lets go. Bucky goes to the bed, to sit on the edge of it, and Steve gets the paint and joins him there.  
   
He takes Bucky’s metal hand in his, bringing it up to kiss the fingers before he starts drawing over the smooth surface. He paints a face that looks like Bucky’s and gives him a cap and neckerchief like the one Bucky is wearing before adding a tail. He puts one arm up in a military salute, and a smile on the face. He dips the brush back into the black once he’s done and draws a little heart on the back of the metal hand. He spends more time on Bucky’s flesh arm, since that’s the one he can feel. He traces wet patterns with a clean brush, as Bucky smiles down at his lap, knowing what Steve’s doing.  
   
“I had an idea,” Steve says, tipping forward to kiss Bucky’s bare shoulder. “I thought … since you’re right, it’s not a good idea to put my name in a heart, instead I could put an S and a B. If anyone asks you can tell them it stands for Sergeant Barnes, but it’s really – ”  
   
“Steve and Bucky.” He finishes Steve’s thought, and looks at him, blinking a few times.  
   
Steve nods. “Yeah. Sound good?”  
   
Bucky answers with a kiss instead of words.  
   
*           *           *  
Basslines thump, bodies move together, lights flash, and Steve sits at the bar with Bucky on one side and Sam on the other. The pumpkins they’d spent the morning carving are everywhere, on the floor and on various counters, a few of them suspended in the air by some kind of Stark Industries magic that Steve couldn’t understand if he tried. With lit candles inside, and the lighting low in the rest of the room, they give off a warm, orange glow. Bucky had carved Steve’s shield, and Steve can see that one at the end of the bar. Sam is dressed as something called Han Solo. Steve didn’t know what that was, and neither did Bucky, and it earned them both a gratuitous eye-roll and a vow to sit them both down and make them watch eight movies in a row. Natasha walks by them, dressed as a colorful character from a Russian fairy tale that Steve also hadn’t hard of. She winks at Steve, and he watches as she grabs Clint by the hand and drags him onto the dancefloor.  
   
“One time, on Halloween, Steve had Rubella,” Bucky muses, casually, as if that’s his idea of idle party conversation.  
   
Sam groans loudly about him being a buzzkill, and Steve cracks up.  
   
“I was quarantined!” he remembers. “Not for real, but my Mother locked me in my room, and yours threatened to make you scrub the floors for a year if you snuck out to visit me, but you did anyway.”  
   
“Crawled in through the window.” Bucky smiles at him. “Caught it from you. Obviously.”  
   
“Did you have to scrub the floors?” Sam asks, his voice flat, the sarcastic  _please tell us we’re all dying to know_  dripping off every syllable.  
   
“Bucky never really got in trouble,” Steve answers for him. “Too charming.”  
   
“You two are tiring,” Sam announces, but he still claps Steve jovially on the shoulder before he walks off in search of better company.  
   
Wanda appears at Bucky’s side, demands a dance, and pulls him toward the throbbing mass of bodies in the center of the room. Steve smiles to himself as he watches Bucky go.  
   
“This might be the first time I’ve seen him smile like that.” Bruce takes Bucky’s recently vacated bar stool.  
   
Steve looks over at him. He’s in a polka-dotted jumpsuit and a frizzy rainbow wig, with a red foam clown nose on his face. He takes the nose off and sets it down on the bar.  
   
“He smiles a lot in private,” Steve says, and blushes when Bruce makes a suggestive face. “Not what I meant. I just mean … I think he still worries you guys all hate him.”  
   
“I never hated him to begin with.” Bruce shrugs.  
   
“I don’t think it’s entirely rational.”  
   
“No,” Bruce agrees. “Things like that never are.”  
   
“You’re okay? With the music and everything?” Steve asks, gesturing at the space surrounding them.  
   
“Tonight, I am. It doesn’t always bother me. I guess it’s not rational either.”  
   
A few yards away from them, Bucky is laughing and spinning Wanda around.  
   
“It’s good to see him happy,” Bruce says.  
   
Steve nods, and agrees a lot more strongly than he’ll say out loud. In truth, it seals up holes the world has left in him, to watch Bucky smiling and dancing. It takes him back to Brooklyn; to the young, bright, happy spirit Bucky used to have before the war and Hydra stamped it out of him. Everything is different now, but sometimes Steve catches glimpses of the boy he used to know, and thinks there’s still a chance they could get back a few pieces of what they used to have. He wants to move forward, always, but he wouldn’t turn down a little of what they had back then, when everything was so much easier. Bucky wraps his metal arm around Wanda’s back and dips her, almost to the floor, and her laugh rings out over the music. In Brooklyn, Bucky used to love dancing. He’d go out on weekends, with his various dates, and usually drag Steve along with him, to be the unsatisfying companion of some unfortunate best friend who didn’t want to be there any more than Steve did. Bucky would respectfully kiss the girl of the evening on her cheek as he dropped her off at her front door. Then he’d take Steve back to the apartment they shared, flip the radio on, and pull Steve into his arms in the middle of the kitchen, swaying with him and singing softly along with whatever song was playing, his voice low and gravelly in Steve’s ear. It was one of the first things Steve did, once Bucky arrived at the tower with a police escort and a stack of signed papers signifying the official prisoner transfer. After showing Bucky around the apartment that would be his new home, Steve had pulled him in close in the kitchen, held him and rocked between his right and left foot, moving to the music that only existed in his memory. Bucky’s eyes had been wet when Steve let him go.  
   
Bruce leaves, after another minute of conversation, and Steve sits alone at the bar with his eyes glued to Bucky and Wanda. Out of the corner of his eye, he notices Tony watching him, from the couch where he’s sitting with his arm around Pepper. Steve lets him look for a moment before breaking his gaze to make eye-contact with Tony across the room, and Tony’s smile and nod are small, but genuine.  
   
*           *           *  
   
It’s well into the early hours of the morning when Steve yawns so widely his jaw cracks, right in Natasha’s face as she’s drunkenly trying to tell him the story that her costume was derived from. Alcohol leaves her forgetting parts of it, and telling half of it to him in Russian, so he ends up knowing less than he did when she started. Bucky announces loudly that it’s past the Captain’s bedtime, and a chorus of good-nights follow them to the elevator. Steve leans on Bucky, and likes Bucky’s fingers in his hair. Strong hands lead him to their bedroom, and sit him down on the bed, and Steve manages to revive himself a little while Bucky is getting him undressed.  
   
“I like this,” Steve tells him, moving the cotton of Bucky’s shirt through his fingers. “Looks cute on you.”  
   
“I wasn’t going for cute,” Bucky informs him, with a fake pout. “I was going for very, very sexy.”  
   
“It’s that, too. But also cute.”  
   
Bucky grumbles about it, but he’s smiling. He’s smiled so much tonight, Steve could almost manage to forget what it looks like when he isn’t. Bucky pulls Steve’s boots off one by one, and then doesn’t resist when Steve pulls him up and tips backwards onto the mattress, dragging Bucky with him. Bucky laughs, and pushes up to his hands and knees so he can look down at Steve. His hair is coming out of the tie, strands of it falling down over his face. Steve holds his cheeks, brings him down so he can kiss him.  
   
“I thought you were tired,” Bucky says, into Steve’s lips.  
   
“Did you have fun, tonight?” Steve asks, ignoring Bucky’s statement.  
   
“Yes. Which I know you know, since you were watching me all night.”  
   
“You could tell, huh?”  
   
“Trained assassin, remember?” Bucky’s lips trail down Steve’s jaw. “I know how to watch my six in a crowded room.”  
   
“You looked happy. Couldn’t look away from you.”  
   
Bucky settles down next to Steve, his head propped up on his hand and his body pressed along Steve’s side. His other hand rests in the middle of Steve’s chest, and Steve takes it and threads their fingers together.  
   
“I am,” Bucky says, looking down at him. “Not all the time. Not every day. But for the most part. Things are good more than they’re bad. That’s something, right?”  
   
“It’s everything.” Steve squeezes his fingers, and then lets go so he can take Bucky’s cheek in his hand. Bucky turns his face into it, kissing the heel of Steve’s palm. He brushes his thumb under Bucky’s eye, and then lets his hand move down to his bicep, trailing his fingertips over the heart with their initials. It’s a little smeared, but still visible.  
   
“A woman I didn’t know asked,” Bucky says. “About the letters. I told her what you said. Then Natasha asked, later, and I told her what it really meant.”  
   
Steve smiles, imagining Natasha’s reaction.  
   
“She sort of looked like she wanted to punch me in the face, but she also said it was sweet, so. I can’t figure her out.” Bucky shrugs.  
   
“None of us can.”  
   
“Was the mermaid supposed to be me?” Bucky nods toward his other arm, where it’s tucked up underneath his head.  
   
“Yes.”  
   
“Thought it was supposed to be the world’s prettiest.”  
   
“Yes,” Steve says again, grinning when Bucky rolls his eyes.  
   
“You’re a dork.”  
   
Steve pulls him in for another kiss. “I love you.”  
   
“I know you do.” Bucky presses another kiss to Steve’s lips, and then rests his head on Steve’s chest. “I love you back.”  
   
Steve rubs his thumb over the heart, and it smears a little more; some of the paint coming off on his finger. “We should wash these off or they’ll get paint all over the sheets.”  
   
“Take a picture, first,” Buck requests. “To remember it.”  
   
Steve lifts his hips up enough to pull his phone from his back pocket. He switches to the front camera, and holds it up to snap a selfie without moving. Bucky’s arm is draped over Steve’s stomach, so the messy heart is in frame. Bucky doesn’t lift his head or open his eyes, so the resulting photograph looks like he’s sleeping in Steve’s arms. Steve loves it, and sets it as the background to his phone screen.  
   
“Up you get,” he urges.  
   
Bucky shakes his head. “Now I’m tired. And you’re warm.” He has nightmares, sometimes, about ice. About freezing so completely he’ll never be able to get warm ever again. Steve has them, too, although for different reasons.  
   
He hugs Bucky close to him, and lets him snuggle for a few minutes before he nudges again, getting Bucky to his feet and pulling him into the bathroom. He undresses Bucky carefully, and then peels himself out of the snug t-shirt and the pants, sweat making the fabric stick because it had been hot at the party. Bucky watches with his bottom lip between his teeth. Steve wants to bite it, but first he turns the nozzle in their spacious shower and helps Bucky into it. Warm water falls down over them, washing the paint off Bucky’s arms, sending colors down to the white plastic floor and into the drain.  
   
“You could do that again, sometime. If you wanted,” Bucky says, with half a shrug and his eyes focused somewhere around Steve’s collar bone.  
   
“Do what?” Steve asks. He wraps his arms around Bucky’s waist, and tugs him in a little closer.  
   
“Paint on me.” Bucky looks up at him, blinking water droplets off his eyelashes. “I didn’t hate it.”  
   
“What would you like me to paint?”  
   
Another shrug. Bucky’s arms lift, going around Steve’s shoulders. The metal fingers play in Steve’s wet hair. “Whatever. Anything. Just …”  
   
“Please tell me what it is,” Steve requests softly, pressing the words with a kiss into Bucky’s lips.  
   
“You putting something nice, on the metal one,” Bucky answers. He bumps Steve’s nose with his own. “I liked that. Made it seem less like a weapon.”  
   
“It’s part of you, so I love it,” Steve says, repeating the sentiment he’d expressed the day before, when they were curled up in bed together and Bucky was touching him with that hand. “So of course I will. If that helps, if it makes you hate it a little less. Whenever you want. Name the time and the place, and I’m there.”  
   
Bucky licks his lips. “I don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t found me.”  
   
“We don’t have to think about that, because I did.” Another kiss, and Steve tightens his arms, getting Buck in just an inch closer so they’re pressed together all the way to their knees. Something warm stirs in his gut, having Bucky against him like this, naked and warm and trusting. “I got you, now. Nobody’s taking you away from me ever again.”  
   
This time, when Bucky kisses him, it’s deeper, more desperate, his tongue slipping out to taste and his fingers gripping harder in Steve’s hair. Steve kisses back until he’s dizzy. He reluctantly pulls away long enough to reach for the soap, but then runs lathered hands over Bucky’s body, soft skin over sculpted muscle, massaging out any tightness he finds. He washes himself quickly while Bucky is shampooing his hair, and once they’re both clean and pink from the heat, he wraps Bucky up in a towel and kisses his nose.  
   
“Cute, again,” he says, rubbing a second towel over Bucky’s hair, leaving it fluffy and sticking out at odd angles.  
   
“I am very dangerous,” Bucky informs him, with raised eyebrows, but there is a smile in his blue eyes. Crinkled at the edges, just as beautiful as they were they day Steve met him when they were six years old.  
   
Steve hums in agreement. “I’m terrified.”  
   
“Maybe you should be.” Bucky’s smile turns into something else, something with a dark promise hidden in it.  
   
“You could prove it to me, if you wanted.”  
   
Bucky takes it for the challenge it is, and drops the towel so he can press their naked bodies together again. Steve grips his hips, holding him close as Bucky kisses him, harder and quicker and more urgent. They stumble back to the bedroom, and fall onto the mattress together, Bucky landing on top of Steve and rolling his hips down into him.  
   
“Hey,” Steve murmurs, squeezing his fingers over Bucky’s ribcage to slow him down, just for a moment. “Hold up.”  
   
Bucky frowns. “You don’t …?”  
   
“No, I do.” Steve cups the back of his head, guides it back down for a slower kiss, sliding his tongue into Bucky’s mouth and then whispering against his lips. “Definitely want you to fuck me.”  
   
Bucky shivers on top of him. “What, then?”  
   
“Just … thank you, for coming tonight. I know you didn’t really want to.”  
   
“I didn’t  _not_ want to,” Bucky says, huffing in annoyance at himself when he realizes that makes no sense.  
   
Steve understood what he meant anyway. He usually does, even when Bucky gets tongue-tied. “I know. But you’re still … figuring out where you fit, here. I know that. I know you would rather have stayed here with me.”  
   
“I had fun.” Bucky kisses the corner of Steve’s mouth, and smiles at him. “You’re right, about all that. But I really did.”  
   
“Good. I’m so happy to hear that.”  
   
“They’re nice, your … people.”  
   
“They could be your people, too. If you let them. They want to be.”  
   
Bucky nods. “I’m getting there. I promise I’m trying.”  
   
“I know you are. I’m so proud of you.” Steve smooths Bucky’s hair back, and lets the serious moment fall away. “Now, c’mon. Show me what you got, soldier.”  
   
Bucky smirks, and kisses him hard enough to bruise, and Steve laughs into it.  
   
*           *           *

**Author's Note:**

> [come talk to me on tumblr if you want!](http://paper-storm.tumblr.com/)


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